A Windy Motorcycle Day

After a slow start, including the lost daylight-savings-time hour, we headed off on a short (72 mile) Sunday ride to the old mining town of Madrid, which has been resurrected by hippies and artists. That seems to be a recurring theme in the southwest; a town dies when its original purpose, usually mining, runs out; it becomes a virtual ghost town; some hippie types stumble upon it and take advantage of the cheap housing; this attracts starving artists; then the galleries move in and the tourists come.

Madrid also happens to be on a Scenic Byway called the Turquoise Trail (NM Route 14) which is the old road between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. It is two lanes, good surface, not too heavily traveled and nice and twisty. Perfect for motorcycles.

Little did we know, Madrid is also a gathering point for Sunday motorcycle rides. For us, it was a relatively near destination for a day that was sunny, but predicted to be windy. We rode into town and saw bikes parked everywhere, mostly clustered around the Mine Shaft Tavern—the local dive, I'm sure. There was a preponderance of Harleys parked outside.

It was about lunch time and there were several eateries to choose from; we chose The Holler. It was across the road from the Mine Shaft and had outdoor seating. A "Cowboy Breakfast" for Steve (eggs, sausage, biscuits, cheese grits w/chiles and a huge slab of ham) and a breakfast burrito for Ellen (huge sausage and egg burrito topped with green and red chiles). We took a sunny outside table and watched the bikes ride by. A filling time was had by all.

After lunch, it was time for a short tour around town (basically a short stretch of NM 14), a look into a couple of shops and galleries and a decent cafe latte at Java Junction. As we passed the Mine Shaft on our way back to our bikes, a change of the guard had occurred. Nearly all the Harleys had been replaced by BMWs. It was like they had separate arrival times and, in our ignorance, we'd arrived during Harley hour.

Since the wind was building (I did mention it was windy), we decided not to stick around and headed north and then west on the county road towards Cochiti Lake. It was the heading west that got tricky. The wind was from the south and was blowing across our path at 20 mph with gusts in the 40s recorded. It wasn't so bad from NM 14 to I-25, but when we took the road across the open plains from I-25 to Cochiti Lake, it was pretty stiff. With my heavy bike (and that Cowboy Breakfast in my stomach), it wasn't too bad but Ellen moved distinctly sideways a couple of times.


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In true fashion, a bit after we arrived back at the campsite, the wind died. But any ride is a good one when it is a sunny day and you get back in one piece.

Photos